Comment on Canice Prendergast's A Theory of 'Yes Men'

Volume 4, No. 2 (Summer 2001)

It is within the bowels of government where the real yes-men problem lies. Here, there is no automatic feedback mechanism of the market to rely upon, to quell any incipient tendencies in the direction of yes-manning. At best they are extraordinarily weak; at worst they are nonexistent. Thus, far from Prendergast being able to make her point that the yes man phenomenon is a market failure, the truth of the matter is that it is a government failure. If market firms rely upon or are involved in yesmanship, they lose money and tend to go bankrupt; if and to the extent that governments become embroiled in this economic virus, the forces for their dissolution are either very much attenuated, or totally absent.